This invention pertains to the art of invalid care devices, and more particularly to wheelchairs.
The invention is especially applicable to slip covers for wheelchair seats, seat cushions and seat backs, and will be described with particular reference thereto. It will be appreciated, however, that the invention has broader applications and can be advantageously employed in other environments. For example, the slip covers can be used in association with other types of seats, regardless of whether they are specifically designed for invalid care.
Wheelchairs are owned by a variety of entities in varying quantities. Hospitals and nursing homes own vast numbers of wheelchairs for use by countless numbers of people. Also, individuals whose physical condition so requires often own wheelchairs for permanent use. These people depend on the same wheelchair over prolonged periods of weeks, months or years.
Wheelchairs which are used by multiple parties (such as those wheelchairs which are rented or used in an institution analogous to a hospital or nursing home) can often present sanitation problems. They must be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized between rentals or uses by various parties, and they must be periodically cleaned when used by a single person for a given extended duration.
Also, spills from food, medication, liquids or other types of materials should preferably be cleaned from wheelchair surfaces almost immediately as they occur to prevent patient discomfort as well as staining and lack of sanitation. Moreover, many patients suffer from incontinence, and this, too, leads to the frequent cleaning of wheelchair surfaces.
Aside from the cleanliness and sanitation problems discussed above, many wheelchairs lend themselves to lacking in aesthetics. For example, wheelchairs owned by institutions or rental agencies offer very little to please the eye. The seats, seat cushions and seat backs are often limited to a basic, bland or neutral color. Even those individuals who own their own chairs with customized upholstery are subject to grow weary of the monotony of day-to-day existence in the same chair.
It would be desirable to develop a simple, quick and economical way for maintaining wheelchairs at appropriate levels of sanitation and cleanliness.
It would be further desirable to develop a simple, economical way to individualize or cosmetically change the appearance of rented, institutional or individually-owned wheelchairs.
The present invention contemplates a new and improved apparatus which overcomes all of the above-referenced problems and others and provides a simple, economical way to both maintain sanitary conditions as well as provide for aesthetically or cosmetically individualized wheelchairs.